Washington DC, Washington D.C.

So yeah, erm, basically Rois and I are still in Washington D.C.. Yep. So I will now blog from there. Right now. Presently from Washington D.C.. As in, America. It's like, half 6 on Wednesday evening here, you guys are all probably in bed now and we're, erm, just heading out for dinner before bedding down in a skanky hostel. Also, looking forward to seeing you all next weekend for our homecoming party. After that Rois is looking forward to living in Birmingham and I'm preparing for my Masters. It is 2009.

We left New York and headed for Boston, one of the most historic cities in the US, an incredible, if freezing cold city. As per Rois' usual, trademark penny-pinching, we landed in a great hotel (hotel, not hostel) in the centre of town, with free newspapers and everything. Reet posh. We quickly outstayed our welcome by taking pretty exploitative advantage of the not-actually-free internet at reception and rushed off to explore the city of Cheers, the Celtics and John F. Kennedy.

During our stay we paid a visit to Salem, home of the infamous witch trials. The town is pretty and quainty and obviously hugely interesting. The stories of the witch trials and the colonial past there were fascinating. The pathos and tragedy of that period is well documented and haunts the town even today. More importantly though, I ate massive pancakes that morning. The pathos and tragedy of my not being able to finish my chocolate chip doughy breakfast is well documented in our photo album and still haunts me even today.

The JFK presidential library and checking out his family's old haunts was pretty incredible, as was the excellent Modern Art Museum. Cold and poor(er), we headed back to New York, where we intended to stay for the weekend and leave again come Monday.

Monday arrives. It's colder still and most of the city is blanketed in a good foot of snow. Bus travel, to quote Peter Kay, is a"noh-goh". This it turned out was a rather fortunate mishap, for that very day, we met the lead singer of an up and coming Irish pop combo. This meeting pretty much dominated the rest of our day there, even though we did also probably do other stuff.

Next up, and lastly for the whole entire year of our travels, was one of my absolute highlights. Washington D.C.. This place is amazing, wall-to-wall history AND Barack Obama lives there! What are the odds?! Main lowlight was that bizarrely we weren't offered a tour of the White House, nor did Barack take the opportunity to get some strategic political thought from me. I repeat, bizarre. No wonder he's struggling now.

It was an action packed few days, during which we walked for miles, taking in the Lincoln Memorial, a tour of the Capitol Building, Arlington Cemetery, the Pentagon, the White House, the ACTUAL Constitution. Absolutely incredible. I think it was definitely more of a highlight for me than Rois but it was, for me at least, a perfect last stop on our adventure. Having said that, Rois did celebrate her birthday there and I bought her a small cake, so I think we all got what we came for.

So that's it. All over. Home time. Don't tell our families though as we're heading home early to surprise them. They'll probably want to just jump up and down for joy when they see us. OR...... They might just all stand there and say nothing for about ten minutes. Could go either way.